Funky wallpaper

If wallpaper = boring in your book, then you haven't seen the quirky and unusual designs that have become available for contemporary walls. Some historians believe wallpaper was first used in ancient China, but it has certainly come a long way from the floral patterns which became popular in the 18th century.

By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan

Credit: Flavor Paper

Wallpaper became very popular in England in the mid-18th century, and soon made its way to the American Colonies.

A piece of wallpaper from the box at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., where President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated -- an artifact from the collection of Ford's Theatre National Historic Site.

Credit: Library of Congress

The quirky designs of the Brooklyn-based company Flavor Paper can surprise and amuse. Take the style called "City Park," which features pigeons, rats, fire hydrants and parking meters.

Flavor Paper owner John Sherman offers custom designs that are hand-screened or digitally printed. Customers have included hipsters like musician Lenny Kravitz.

"That was sort of a nice jumping-off point for us," Sherman told CBS News' Rita Braver, "and kind of took things out of being your grandmother's wallpaper, to immediately being, 'We make rock star wallpaper!'"

Credit: Flavor Paper

Sherman bought an Oregon wallpaper company whose business had declined in the 1980s and was, in his words, "being burned to the ground." He moved the operations to New Orleans, and eventually to Brooklyn.

" I had never really contemplated wallpaper as a potential product," he told Braver. "I was very anti-white walls and I loved a lot of color. And this company had really thrived in the '70s and had some very colorful, bright Mylar wallpaper that I found to be striking and hadn't seen anything like it. I missed that era! It was extremely unique and really sparked my interest. And I thought, 'I don't know anyone with wallpaper. Why not?' I hadn't seen any fun, interesting, colorful wallpaper in my life, so I decided to jump on it. And I thought, 'I know enough artists and I have enough color taste and appreciation that I can make something that people will like.' "

"This has gone on a lot of different spaces," said Sherman, "the most terrifying being over a female lawyer's bed in San Francisco, who I would not want to face in court! But she did it in black on black, so it was very subtle."

Credit: Flavor Paper

An installation view of geometric-patterned wallpaper from Flavor Paper.

Credit: Flavor Paper

Braver asked Sherman, "Do you think the design world has come around today to a new appreciation of wallpaper that maybe wasn't there 10, 15 years ago?"

"Oh, absolutely," he replied. "When we first showed at ICFF [the International Contemporary Furniture Fair] in 2003, there were really two or three wallpaper companies showing. And last year there were 92 companies listed as showing wallpaper!"

Credit: Flavor Paper

"Rio Crocodillo" fuses the sidewalk pattern from Rio de Janeiro's Ipanema Beach with the texture of crocodile skin.

Credit: Flavor Paper

"What do you say to people who have never used wallpaper before?" asked Braver.

"Well, I think bathrooms are an excellent place to start, because they are their own little microcosm within their home," said Flavor Paper's Sherman. "So it gives you a contained space to kind of go wild and really experiment with how you feel about pushing the boundaries of your home with it in a contained scenario, instead of in the forefront of something you're gonna sleep next to every night, or in your living room.

"But I really think it's important for people. It's similar to choosing artwork. You find something you really love. You get it in the right color so that it works with your home palette, and you put something in that you really love. And you wake up every day and you say, 'I love looking at these flowers every day.' And it's just a nice point of your home."

Credit: Flavor Paper

Payton Turner and her husband, artist Brian Kaspr, founded Flat Vernacular, after they discovered a mutual interest in wallpaper.

"I was always really interested in exploring pattern in my drawings," said Turner. After moving to New York, she had a small show in which she showed wallpaper she had been doing in school, as part of her senior thesis at the Maryland Institute College of Art. "A woman commissioned me to do it in her townhouse and we started exploring printed designs. And it sort of snowballed very organically."

Credit: Flat Vernacular

"Wallpaper is a really excellent medium for covering a space entirely, which paintings typically don't do, so it kind of sets the mood, sets the scene, creates an atmosphere," said Turner.

Credit: Flat Vernacular

"I think the people who grew up with [wallpaper] are now becoming homeowners and buying spaces," said Flat Vernacular's Brian Kaspr. "And so they have a nostalgia, and so they want to revive that."

Credit: Flat Vernacular

A bathroom installation of wallpaper from Flat Vernacular.

Credit: Flat Vernacular

A closeup of the design titled "Too Much Stuff," based on stickers of random objects applied by hand to the paper.

"This came out of drawings I was doing in the studio -- little teeny tiny drawings of just piles of stuff falling into nothingness," said Turner. "And I was thinking about how funny it would be to make a wallpaper of just stuff."

Credit: Flat Vernacular

An installation view of "Too Much Stuff."

Credit: Flat Vernacular

Kaspr says wallpaper is his generation's way of going beyond stark, white walls.

"I think people like to really own their space," said Kaspr. "And I think with the level of people out there who are willing to do their own decorating, for instance, it becomes sort of an extension of their taste."